LOCAL PRESS

Dacic requests UNESCO to postpone debate on Pristina’s admission (Politika/Danas/Novosti)

“I appeal on you to postpone the debate on Kosovo’s admission and to give a chance to dialogue,” said Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic in his address to the UNESCO General Conference in Paris. “UNESCO should not make political decisions about statehood. In particular, it must not be allowed to be put in the function of affirmation of the illegal and unilaterally declared independence of a part of the territory of a UN member-state, whose sovereignty and territorial integrity is guaranteed by a valid and legally binding UN Security Council resolution,” Dacic said. Referring to Resolution 1244, the Serbian Foreign Minister pointed out that Kosovo and Metohija is the territory of the Republic of Serbia under the UN interim administration, where the UNMIK Mission operates today. “Serbia’s intention is not to isolate anyone or to prevent anyone from having access to UNESCO activities, on the contrary. However, it is a fact that Kosovo and Metohija participates in numerous activities of the organization, only in a status-neutral manner, in accordance with Resolution 1244, which best shows that the real intention of the submitters of this request was exclusively political,” said Dacic. Pointing out that the request for Kosovo’s admission was without precedent, Dacic said that, by opposing this proposal, Serbia was defending international law.

Drecun invites all who have information on crimes to assist (Beta)

The first session of the working group for collecting facts and evidence in shedding light on crimes in Kosovo and Metohija was held at the Serbian parliament. The chairman of this group Milovan Drecun called on all those who have information on perpetrated crimes to address them. “I wish to invite all those who have information about the crimes that were committed in 1998, 1999 and 2000 in Kosovo and Metohija to address this working group and their identity will be maximally protected. We need cooperation of people who were direct witnesses to crimes,” Drecun told journalists in the Serbian parliament. He says that they agreed at the first session the methodology of work and determined tasks that need to be fulfilled in the following period. According to him, the working group will also invite representatives of UNMIK, OSCE, EULEX, the Security-Information Agency (BIA) and the Military-Security Agency (VOA) to attend their sessions and submit their data. Drecun specified that all of the information acquired by the working group will be submitted to the war crimes special prosecution in Belgrade that will forward it then to the special investigative team that is conducting the investigation based on Dick Marty’s report and the special war crimes court in Kosovo and Metohija. “This is the last, serious chance to reveal crimes that are committed in Kosovo and Metohija against the Serbs, Romas and other communities that have not be discovered and processed, and we, as the working group want to contribute to the collection of facts based on which the prosecution can proceed,” said Drecun. The first session was attended by Dragoljub Stankovic from the war crimes prosecution in Belgrade, representative of the Serbian Interior Ministry Dejan Marinkovic and the Chairman of the Commission for Missing Persons Veljko Odalovic. The next session should be held at the Service for Discovering War Crimes (SORS).

REGIONAL PRESS

Five bilateral agreements signed (Srna)

The Chairman of the B&H Council of Ministers Denis Zvizdic and Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic signed on Wednesday the Protocol on cooperation in tracing missing persons between the B&H Council of Ministers and the government of Serbia. After the first joint session that took place on Wednesday in Sarajevo, the Protocol on cooperation in preserving the Mehmed Pasha Sokolovic Bridge in Visegrad between the Government of Serbia and the B&H Council of Ministers was signed by Serbian minister of agriculture and environmental protection, Snezana Boskovic Bogosavljevic, and B&H Minister of Civil Affairs Adil Osmanovic. Minister Bogosavljevic and B&H Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations Mirko Sarovic signed the Agreement on cooperation in environmental protection and sustainable development between the government of Serbia and the B&H Council of Ministers. Minister Sarovic and Rasim Ljajic, Serbian Minister of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications, signed the Memorandum on cooperation in export-import of armaments, military equipment and dual-use goods between the B&H Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations and the Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications of Serbia. The Memorandum of understanding in the field of telecommunications between the Government of Serbia and the B&H Council of Ministers was signed by Minister Ljajic and Slavko Matanovic, B&H Minister of Communications and Transport.

Leader of B&H Wahhabis sentenced to 7 years in prison (Nezavisne)

Husein Bilal Bosnic, informal leader of the Wahhabis in B&H, has been sentenced to seven years in prison for the criminal offense of incitement to terrorist activity, recruitment for terrorist activities and organization of terrorist groups. The first instance verdict was delivered this morning by Court of B&H. The Prosecution has expressed satisfaction with the verdict, but said it will seek greater punishment on appeal. Defense also announced an appeal, saying this case is “politically staged”. The verdict reads that Bosnic, in 2013 and 2014, as a member of the so-called Salafi community organized in B&H outside of the official institutions of the Islamic Community, publicly incited others to join terrorist organizations in several towns in B&H. At rallies of members of the Salafi community, as well as through social networks, Bosnic propagated and spread Islamic radicalism in B&H and the region. He was also publishing his speeches and public messages to encourage members of the Salafi community to become members of Islamic State. He was arrested in a police operation codenamed “Damascus” in September 2014.

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

Kosovo Books ‘Will Help Genocide Case Against Serbia’ (BIRN, by Amire Qamili, Petrit Collaku, 4 November 2015)

Kosovo’s War Crime Institute published four new books on the 1998-99 which the government said will be important documents when it begins its attempt to sue Serbia for genocide.

Kosovo’s Justice Minister Hajredin Kuci said at the launch of the new books on Wednesday that they will be useful in helping Pristina bring a case against Belgrade for “genocidal acts, war crimes and other crimes committed against the civilian population of the Republic of Kosovo”.

The four new books published by the War Crime Institute are ‘Challenges of Researching War Crimes in Kosovo 1998-99’, ‘Missing Persons in Kosova during the war 1998-99’, ‘Destroyed Monuments in Kosova 1998-99’ and ‘Killings in Kosova 1998-99’. “The truth of the war in Kosovo should make the Serbian people and Serbia have regrets but above all to ask forgiveness for their actions,” Kuci said. Kosovo Foreign Minister Hashim Thaci threatened earlier this year to sue Serbia for genocide at the International Court of Justice. But because Kosovo is not a member of the United Nations, it would face serious obstacles to bringing a case at the UN court, causing critics to call it an impractical move that would waste precious funds. Ismet Salihu, a member of the War Crime Institute and the author of the book on missing persons, said that wartime killings and expulsions had to be documented in order to prove genocide. “Mass graves explain in the most convincing way Serbia’s motives and purposes for genocide,” said Salihu.

Another author, Fejaz Drancolli, said that Kosovo’s cultural heritage also became the target of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic during the 1999 war. “In Kosovo, 2,700 buildings with heritage values were destroyed. We reached the conclusion that the aim of Serbian regime and its policies was the destruction of Albanian heritage, civilisation and language,” said Drancolli.

The War Crime Institute was set up by the Kosovo government in 2011 to collect, process, classify and archive war crimes cases.

Bosnia and Serbia hold first joint session of governments (AP, by Aida Cerkez, 4 November 2015)

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Seeking to improve their relations and contribute to the stabilization of the Western Balkans, the Bosnian and Serbian governments on Wednesday held their first joint session since their conflict started 25 years during the dissolution of Yugoslavia.

The two governments signed cooperation agreements on finding missing persons, telecommunications, protection of cultural heritage and sustainable development but announced this is just a beginning of a process of strengthening their relations. “There will be more sessions like this,” said Bosnia’s Prime Minister Denis Zvizdic after the session. “This is a good pattern.”

During the 1992-95 Bosnian war that cost 100,000 lives, Serbia supported the Bosnian Serbs in their quest to secede from Bosnia and join Serbia. After the war Serbia continued to support the Bosnian Serbs financially and politically for years, but now — as both countries aspire to join the EU — their interest lies in fixing their relations and improving their economies together.

“We are more and more important to each other,” said Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic. “We are striving toward a different future. We do not want to see an enemy where there is actually a friend,” he said, adding that in the coming decades, Serbia and Bosnia could be “the engine of development in the region.” Media in Bosnia have labeled the meeting as historic and political analyst Vlastimir Mijovic said that “what happened today is encouraging and comes at the right moment.” He noted that the two governments seem to be taking this meeting very seriously since the entire Serbian government came to Sarajevo for the whole day in the middle of a burning migrant crisis at home.

Disputes Delay Publication of Bosnia Census (BIRN, by Rodolfo Toe, 5 November 2015)

The final results of the 2013 census will not be published before the end of 2015 or the start of next year, a Bosnian minister has confirmed. A Bosnian minister has admitted that the elaboration of data collected for the census in 2013 “is not proceeding according to plan. “We can be sure that we won’t be able to publish the results before the end of this year,” Adil Osmanovic, the Minister for Civil Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, said. Twenty years after the end of the war, Bosnia still lacks a complete census of its population. The first one was held from October 1 to 15, 2013. The final data were due to be released in February 2015. However, so far the authorities have only been able to share some preliminary results, which show the geographical distribution of the population. The elaboration process is being delayed because of a methodological disagreement between the statistical agencies of Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the two entities of the country. As Balkan Insight wrote last May, the two agencies cannot agree on the criteria to be used to calculate the number of residents. The statistic bureau of RS insists on determining residence by place of work or education. This view is controversial, since it might led to the elimination of some 430,000 individuals from the database, including many Bosniak and Croat returnees to the Serbian-dominated entity. “From the very beginning, this census has been the victim of great political manipulation”, Daljo Sijah, an activist of the Bosnian NGO Zasto Ne, told BIRN. “The current situation is unfortunately no surprise for us. “In the next two years, others European countries will start to organize new censuses, while we might still be waiting for the results of the one we organized back in 2013”, Sijah said. “A hundred years ago, when Austria-Hungary organized its last census in Bosnia, it took less time to obtain the exact demographic picture of the country,” he added. During the past weeks, many local newspapers published what they called “exclusive and final results of the 2013 census”. However, “these numbers are absolutely not reliable,” Mirsada Adembegovic, from the national Statistical Agency, told BIRN. “They don’t have absolutely anything to do with our work. It’s just media manipulation. “We expect that the final results to be published at the beginning of next year,” Adembegovic added.